The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - August 05, 2026


Canadians are paying more than ever to put food on the table.


Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

178.41

Word count

3,048

Sentence count

215

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:07.720 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Cawortha Lakes, with new content for
00:00:11.600 you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time, even throughout the summer. So don't forget to
00:00:16.940 like, comment, share, and subscribe to this program. If you're on YouTube, hit the bell,
00:00:21.700 you'll be notified when new content is being made available. On today's show, we are talking about
00:00:26.700 the Liberals' new national security food strategy? And will it work? Well, to give us answers is the
00:00:33.160 one and only Warren Steinle, the Member of Parliament for Regina Luvan. Thanks for coming
00:00:37.220 on the show once again. It's a pleasure to be here, Jamie. Thank you so much for the invitation and
00:00:41.240 looking forward to taking apart this food program that the Liberals have talked about.
00:00:45.720 Obviously, the Prime Minister said he should be judged by the price at the grocery store and
00:00:49.820 Canadians have judged him and they have found him lacking. Well, lines of the food banks are
00:00:55.080 getting longer. Prices at the grocery store are getting higher. No relief in sight, but we do have
00:01:01.700 an announcement by the government. So let's queue up cut one. We will show a bit of the Prime
00:01:06.380 Minister's press conference, then we'll unpack a bit of it. Play cut one. We are an agricultural
00:01:10.680 superpower. Yet for most Canadians, it doesn't feel like that at the checkout counter.
00:01:19.660 Grocery prices are up nearly 35% since 2019.
00:01:24.540 And today, the average Canadian family spends about $10,000 a year on groceries,
00:01:30.700 or $800 a month.
00:01:33.060 Now, one of the things we did is to look at the structural reasons for that.
00:01:37.920 There are multiple reasons.
00:01:39.480 Okay, who's been in power since 2019?
00:01:42.420 Well, really 2015, including 2019 onwards.
00:01:46.160 See, that's interesting.
00:01:46.980 And they always talk about things have gone wrong since 2015, 2019.
00:01:51.900 Well, this prime minister was Justin Trudeau's economic advisor during that time, during 2019, before he became prime minister.
00:02:00.080 So lots of the policies that were put in place that have damaged farmers and hurt farmers and really hit their bottom line,
00:02:05.940 like the industrial carbon tax for that, before we made them reverse on the consumer carbon tax, that hit farmers.
00:02:12.140 And fertilizer tariffs and the reduction of fertilizer.
00:02:15.060 they're really asking farmers to do more than less.
00:02:18.340 So there's no surprise that they've been in power for 10 years
00:02:21.220 and food has gone up every year over those 10 years.
00:02:24.280 Yeah, so much more challenging under this government for farmers.
00:02:28.240 And so the Liberals are saying, well, okay, well, we need to increase food supply
00:02:32.800 and increase competition, which is something we've said for as long as I can remember.
00:02:37.640 Even our former critic, Ryan Williams from the Belleville area in Ontario,
00:02:42.000 laid out a plan that showed how controlled the food industry is in Canada, especially with the
00:02:50.080 grocery chains. Three big ones operate everything, basically everything, squeezing out mom and pop
00:02:56.960 stores. So the tax structure, the food policy when it comes to fertilizer and the rules,
00:03:06.380 regulations and red tape that farmers have to go through constantly, they all play a role in how
00:03:12.420 we arrived at this point, which also is framed around horrible government policy. We've heard
00:03:18.640 this time and time again from these liberals. We heard in 2023, Minister Champagne called all
00:03:25.800 the CEOs of the grocery stores to Ottawa and said, we're going to make a difference. And
00:03:30.480 everything they've done has caused nothing but more inflation, more harm. Let's not forget,
00:03:35.700 Inflation is a big part of the grocery cost, and that's due to their reckless spending.
00:03:39.860 But this Prime Minister has said he'll be judged at the grocery store,
00:03:43.220 and they have done nothing to make food more affordable for Canadians across the country.
00:03:48.640 And let's not forget, Minister Champagne did say,
00:03:52.040 we're going to reduce prices of groceries by Thanksgiving.
00:03:55.420 But that was Thanksgiving 2023.
00:03:57.580 They've never followed through on any of these commitments,
00:03:59.840 and this national food strategy that they just announced recently
00:04:02.720 is going to be more of the same from these Liberals.
00:04:05.360 and Canadians are not going to see any benefit.
00:04:08.520 Also, the price of groceries, a big part of that is fuel.
00:04:12.040 And we just put forward a motion recently that would cut all the taxes on fuel for the whole year,
00:04:18.840 which would have related to lower grocery prices.
00:04:22.720 Once again, the Liberals went halfway, only took one part of the tax off.
00:04:26.720 So we haven't seen the prices drop as we should.
00:04:30.020 And that's a direct result of the government taxing fuel more and more,
00:04:33.180 especially with the industrial carbon tax.
00:04:35.720 Yeah, that's right. Absolutely.
00:04:37.880 And every time there's a tax along every step of the line, the price goes up.
00:04:43.860 And we have all these rules, all this red tape that farmers have to deal with.
00:04:49.480 We have processing capacity issues in Ontario specifically,
00:04:53.640 but it actually spreads out to the rest of the country
00:04:56.380 where we can't seem to get a food processing plant built
00:04:59.540 because there's so much red tape that there's no point in ever building it or even trying for an
00:05:05.060 application for it. And this hurts the price at the till. It's all affected. This government has
00:05:11.540 done this step by step. Absolutely. It's frustrating. My cousin's still a ranch in
00:05:16.440 Southwest Saskatchewan. They run about 200 head of cattle. And it's always said, we've been saying
00:05:21.780 it for years, conservatives. If you tax a farmer or rancher that grows the food, you tax a trucker
00:05:26.460 that trucks the food, you tax the grocery stores
00:05:28.800 that provide the food,
00:05:30.660 the end's going to be a higher price of the till
00:05:32.900 for Canadians, and that's just logical.
00:05:35.120 That's common sense.
00:05:36.220 The more you charge everyone at each line
00:05:39.240 of the food chain, the more it's going to cost Canadians,
00:05:41.840 and Canadians have had enough,
00:05:42.980 and this government continues to fail
00:05:45.240 when it comes to the food affordability crisis we're seeing.
00:05:48.320 They got an F for food security
00:05:50.100 from the food bank report that just came out.
00:05:52.740 The United Way report just came out.
00:05:54.300 that said more and more Canadians are having no money
00:05:57.800 at the end of the month, so they can't even afford groceries.
00:06:01.060 They're putting groceries on their credit card
00:06:02.800 and that's unsustainable.
00:06:04.960 So in Canada, like I said, three big grocery giants,
00:06:09.580 if you will, control all the little stores that we see
00:06:13.740 in some way, in some capacity.
00:06:15.960 If we had a true free market system,
00:06:18.480 you would be able to see mom and pop shops set up
00:06:21.980 that could provide a better price,
00:06:24.320 a better service at the till.
00:06:26.220 But anyone thinking about it can't get into that space.
00:06:30.640 There's so many rules, regulations, red tape to start up.
00:06:35.400 That's why you don't see that happening.
00:06:37.840 Whereas if there was more competition
00:06:40.480 and if you wanna make anything better,
00:06:42.120 you create a competitive marketplace.
00:06:44.640 We don't have it, same as telecom, same as airlines.
00:06:47.900 You don't see any better service,
00:06:50.940 any prices for the end user, which is the consumer.
00:06:54.240 Here's a perfect example.
00:06:55.720 A friend of mine in Cairnport in Crosby raises snow beef.
00:06:58.440 It's a cross between Holstein and Wagyu.
00:07:01.860 He gets that done in a local repertoire.
00:07:06.180 They can't sell snow beef across provincial borders.
00:07:09.320 This government also promised to tear down
00:07:12.800 inter-provincial trade barriers,
00:07:14.220 which would then have the ability for more goods
00:07:17.000 to cross provincial barriers at less of a cost.
00:07:21.260 So it's so frustrating that my friend
00:07:23.440 can't sell his snow beef in, say, Manitoba, Alberta,
00:07:27.520 or across the country, but you go to Costco,
00:07:29.660 and you can pick up New Zealand lamb.
00:07:31.860 So the fact that we have different regulations
00:07:33.860 and more red tape is also increasing the price of food
00:07:37.120 that you talked about.
00:07:38.000 So those are the barriers that are holding back,
00:07:40.140 like you said, more mom and pop shops
00:07:43.120 from opening up and providing local food,
00:07:45.500 because one thing we do have to focus on is producing more food locally,
00:07:49.600 but there's so much government bureaucracy in the way,
00:07:52.340 many people are turned away from going down that entrepreneurial path
00:07:57.560 because there's so much red tape by this government.
00:07:59.840 Yeah, it's that food processing capacity that we were talking about.
00:08:03.680 Unless you're federally regulated, you can't go across provincial lines,
00:08:08.420 but it's so expensive to be a federally regulated plant
00:08:12.260 that nobody is doing it anymore.
00:08:14.480 No one's starting it up.
00:08:15.880 We have cattle that need to be processed
00:08:17.800 and other ruminants and the like,
00:08:22.100 but we just can't get investment into those facilities.
00:08:26.100 Exactly.
00:08:26.520 That's the biggest problem when it comes to competition
00:08:27.900 is having an attractive business climate
00:08:31.200 that people want to invest their money here.
00:08:32.720 And that's one thing that we've talked about for a long time.
00:08:35.440 Our shadow minister for agriculture, John Barlow,
00:08:37.780 has talked about creating an environment
00:08:39.500 for more agriculture investment time and time again,
00:08:43.060 more value added, and this government just shies away.
00:08:46.580 Because quite frankly, I don't think they understand agriculture
00:08:49.220 or quite frankly, even care that much about it.
00:08:51.560 That's what it comes down to.
00:08:52.560 It's lower on their priority list.
00:08:54.200 I think the agriculture minister in this government sits at the kids' table
00:08:57.720 and isn't part of the decision-making.
00:08:59.640 And that's where you got to show respect for the industry
00:09:01.580 and make sure that you know what's going on
00:09:03.640 so that we can have that investment come back to Canada
00:09:06.800 when it comes to agriculture.
00:09:07.620 Well, the government has promised $3 billion over 10 years to hopefully reduce our reliance on imported food.
00:09:15.600 See if that works.
00:09:16.680 We have a different climate here, right?
00:09:18.800 More money for increased competition, how that's going to play out.
00:09:23.020 But again, a lot of this is borrowed money.
00:09:24.820 This is money that we don't have, where the solutions are actually quite simple.
00:09:29.780 Just bring government out of the way, get taxes under control, and create an environment where farmers can make money.
00:09:35.920 You don't have to spend more money.
00:09:37.380 You have to make sure that there is that climate.
00:09:40.600 Lower taxes, get rid of some regulation,
00:09:43.080 make it more attractive again for people to come back to the agriculture industry
00:09:46.300 and help them get to that value added so that you can tear down the barriers
00:09:50.640 so that they can sell their goods across the country and around the world.
00:09:53.880 I bet you that would be your friend's beef would be more than welcome in Ontario
00:09:57.680 if we could actually get it here.
00:09:59.220 Absolutely.
00:09:59.860 It's incredible.
00:10:00.880 It's easier to do business in other countries than it is Canada in some circumstances.
00:10:05.080 It's just mind-boggling why this continues to be accepted.
00:10:08.900 But it is also transitioning into other areas of people's life.
00:10:12.640 They can't afford to eat.
00:10:13.480 They can't afford rent.
00:10:14.620 Now we have people who are working with jobs,
00:10:17.820 and this has been growing for a number of years,
00:10:19.980 that are now living in tents and campers.
00:10:22.840 And we have a news story about this.
00:10:24.140 This is in southwestern Ontario.
00:10:25.820 Let's queue up cut two and play cut two.
00:10:29.160 Highway carpool parking lots with a number of permanent residents.
00:10:32.980 It's another sign of the housing crisis and people desperately looking for a place to live.
00:10:38.020 Our pool parking lot is not much.
00:10:41.180 My backyard of sorts, I guess.
00:10:43.980 But for nearly a year, it's been home for George and his girlfriend.
00:10:47.740 Well, I was working and then I suddenly lost work and I couldn't pay my rent anymore.
00:10:54.560 So it actually just started off with me just staying in my truck.
00:10:58.420 George's story is similar to so many others who find themselves without a home.
00:11:02.760 My girlfriend works landscaping and then snow removal in the winter and I just work on cars.
00:11:09.780 We're hoping to save up some money to get first and last.
00:11:13.640 While still working, they say finding a place to rent has not been possible.
00:11:17.980 Everything seems to be getting worse under this government.
00:11:20.900 Worse, housing crisis, food insecurity, food bank lineups.
00:11:27.220 The list just keeps going on.
00:11:29.300 Crime is up everywhere.
00:11:31.340 Like, this is all caused.
00:11:34.580 We didn't get here by accident, right?
00:11:35.840 This is all caused by bad policy and bad leadership.
00:11:38.840 Well, first of all, it's just sad that working Canadians are in the state that they're in.
00:11:44.080 And to show how out of touch this prime minister is, this liberal elite, he said affordability, just a couple weeks ago, he said affordability has never been better in Canada.
00:11:53.800 Well, go tell that to that gentleman that was just on the news, that's living in his car.
00:11:58.000 Tell that to the single mother that can't afford rent and groceries at the end of the month.
00:12:01.420 The fact that the Prime Minister and the Liberals are so out of touch and think everything is awesome,
00:12:07.420 Canada's a great country.
00:12:08.680 We all love Canada, but to create the illusion that Canada's on the right track right now,
00:12:13.020 it's just misinformation and the Liberals are doing it on purpose and just putting their head in the sand.
00:12:19.760 The first step to fixing the problem is admitting there is a problem,
00:12:23.800 and we do have an affordability problem in Canada.
00:12:25.680 These liberals refuse to admit that.
00:12:29.200 It seems their badge of success is how many government programs they can create and how many people they can put on those government programs.
00:12:37.860 Where I'm old enough to remember that the badge of success was getting people off a government program and creating an economy that allowed people to survive and thrive.
00:12:48.420 Absolutely.
00:12:49.120 Like their flagship programs of the lunch program, the child care program, the essential grocery benefit that just came out.
00:12:57.640 That's actually the essential benefit for groceries is actually admission of failure.
00:13:03.520 Like you shouldn't have to give out money to Canadians.
00:13:06.920 They should be able to have a job and afford their own groceries.
00:13:10.380 That's the sign of success.
00:13:11.780 Having people be independent.
00:13:13.140 But if you're left-wing ideology, the more people that depend on the government, the more people are going to vote for them.
00:13:20.120 This is all about playing politics and hoping that if people in Canada believe they need the government, then they'll have to vote for Liberals.
00:13:28.340 I would rather have people in Canada believe in themselves and make it successful.
00:13:35.660 Canada is when people are working, can provide for their own families, can have a nice home and safe streets.
00:13:40.820 And that's what Conservatives want to do.
00:13:42.440 Liberals want people to depend on the government.
00:13:45.000 As our leader says quite often, we want government to be small so people can be big.
00:13:49.460 Excellent line.
00:13:50.440 I love that.
00:13:51.280 We have here now, let's cut three, the Bank of Canada Governor, Tiff Macklem.
00:13:56.360 Let's get his take on things.
00:13:57.880 Let's cut three.
00:13:58.680 What is the time frame that Canadians should be expecting you to be looking at these global oil prices?
00:14:05.200 If we are at the end of the summer and we haven't seen much change in the global price of oil,
00:14:10.100 Should Canadians then be expecting interest rate hikes coming down the pipeline?
00:14:17.100 Look, obviously, the higher oil prices go and the longer they're higher,
00:14:24.420 the more likely it is that we'll have to raise rates to bring inflation back to target.
00:14:32.800 Wouldn't it be amazing if we lived in a country that had an abundance of oil and gas
00:14:36.980 just under our feet, waiting to be extracted in a responsible and efficient manner. Wait a minute,
00:14:42.280 we do. We do live in a country that has that, but we can't get it out. The government will not
00:14:48.380 allow us to build a pipeline. They say they will. Hopefully they do, right? We'd love a pipeline to
00:14:54.460 the Pacific. East Coast would be good too. But right now, the investors don't see a workable
00:15:01.900 environment in Canada to risk their money. Let's not forget that Mark Carney cheered on
00:15:07.480 Justin Trudeau's decision to veto pipeline projects that were on the books under Prime
00:15:13.360 Minister Harper. He has vetoed pipeline after pipeline. Imagine if those pipelines were built
00:15:19.020 now, how much better off we'd be and how we'd be able to export our high quality oil and natural
00:15:26.280 gas to Europe to help them get off the reliance of Russia.
00:15:29.800 Yeah.
00:15:30.520 And creating jobs and opportunities and wealth right here at home.
00:15:34.560 Can you imagine the tax revenue the government would be collecting right now from those operations?
00:15:40.860 Like, it would be incredible.
00:15:42.280 And people would be working.
00:15:43.780 People would have hope.
00:15:45.120 We'd be paying less taxes.
00:15:46.520 Less taxes.
00:15:47.260 Collecting taxes from projects.
00:15:48.960 Yeah.
00:15:49.260 It would just be a well-oiled machine.
00:15:53.100 But unfortunately, we don't have that.
00:15:54.960 So hopefully we can get some common sense into this government.
00:15:58.080 We'll keep pushing.
00:15:58.800 I know you will, Warren, and you're a good advocate,
00:16:00.620 not just for agriculture, but a wide range of topics,
00:16:03.440 including oil and gas and resource extraction in your home province,
00:16:08.060 which is a great energy-producing province.
00:16:11.480 You've got potash and a whole bunch of other things.
00:16:13.500 So we're pretty much out of time.
00:16:14.820 But as you know, the guests always get the last word, so the floor is yours.
00:16:17.900 Absolutely.
00:16:18.360 Just want to tell Canadians there is hope.
00:16:20.620 Conservatives will continue to fight to have safer streets in your community
00:16:24.360 and better jobs, high-paying jobs,
00:16:26.740 so that parents can look after their own kids 0.83
00:16:28.560 and make a better life for everyone.
00:16:30.900 So Conservatives are going to fight for Canadians every step of the way
00:16:33.540 and make sure that there is, like our leader said,
00:16:36.340 smaller government so we have bigger people.
00:16:39.000 Absolutely.
00:16:39.640 Warren Steinle, Member of Parliament for Regina, Leuven in Saskatchewan.
00:16:43.500 Thank you for your time, sir.
00:16:44.500 Thank you for yours.
00:16:45.780 Don't forget, we will have new content for you every single Tuesday,
00:16:48.580 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time, even throughout the summer.
00:16:51.740 so please like, comment, subscribe, and share this program. Tell your friends to download it
00:16:56.320 on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. You name it, it is out there. So
00:17:01.060 until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.